Relative Strangers

Every family has secrets, and you eventually realize that most of them are not being kept from the world but from OTHER SIDES OF THE FAMILY! In this episode, cousin Taylor Mali talks about some of those secrets. For example, did you know that John Taylor Johnston's father owned an enslaved person in New York City in the early 1800s?! Or that his mother slept with a man who was not his father!? Some relative strangers may think they recognize whispered scandals from their own branches of the family—especially in the poem Taylor recites somewhere in the middle (although you will likely not be able to tell when it starts)—but but there's nothing here to bunch anyone's pantaloons into too tight a wad. Nevertheless get ready to clutch your pearls!

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.

On this episode of Relative Strangers host Taylor Mali (1965) speaks with third cousin Robert Whitman Easton (1945), whom he has yet to meet in person, about pretentiousness, family resentment over perceived inequity in the settlement of estates, the problem with attics, and whether you can keep a husband around by having another baby. Discuss legacy admissions, secret scholarships, and the odds that The Metropolitan Museum of Art will rent us their rooftop garden bar for a Friday night cocktail reception of all the descendants of John Taylor Johnston (1820) and Frances Colles (1826) in June of 2024. 

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.

John Taylor Johnston, one of host Taylor Mali's great-great-grandfathers, was one of those 19th-century railroad tycoons whom Malcolm Gladwell has noted were all born in New York City within about a decade of one another. He may not have been an Astor, Vanderbilt, or Carnegie, but he made enough money to be able to make a lasting contribution to the cultural life of New York City that endures today. In this episode, Taylor talks about what that contribution was and discusses—perhaps a little too much—the difference between ASCENDANCY family charts, which list all the parents but none of the siblings, and DESCENDANCY CHARTS, which list all the children but none of their spouses.

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.

In this first episode, host Taylor introduces John Taylor Johnston and Frances Colles, the patriarch and matriarch of the family, at least this branch of it. If you ever watched The Gilded Age on HBO, then you'd understand why Taylor's wife Rachel calls that show "the documentary about Taylor's family." This episode will give you an overview of the couple at the heart of this podcast series. And there has already been some family drama.

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.

Poet and "longtime New Yorker" Taylor Mali introduces himself and some of the themes of the podcast: Family, Privilege, Poetry, and Secrets. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on Instagram @RelativeStrangersPodcast for a little less drama.

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.